Sapphire HD 4770 Review

Introduction:

Enter the Sapphire HD 4770, ATI's first video card equipped with a GPU manufactured using a 40 nanometer manufacturing process. In the current economic situation, people just dont have the disposable income they had even last year and are more frugal when it comes time to spend those hard earned dollars. The HD 4770, priced at $99, give or take a few dollars, is a card that looks to fill the performance void at the $100 price point. The card contains 826 million transistors, 640 shader processing cores, and 512MB of GDDR5 running through a 128-bit bus, to bring the crucial memory bandwidth back up to a respectable level. Clock speeds come in at 750MHz on the R740 core and 800MHz on the memory. So just where will the HD 4770 fall on the performance ladder when compared with cards priced just a bit higher? Will this force the competition into further price drops to compete for this price/performance point? Let's see just what the HD 4770 has to offer for your money.

Closer Look:

The graphic detail used by Sapphire on the packaging is always well done and this box is no different, with the latest version of Ruby prominently featured on the front panel. The front panel carries the product designation (HD 4770), as well as some of the capabilities of the video card, such as Crossfire X capabilities, the use of 512 MB of GDDR5 memory, HDMI with 7.1 sound, the 40nm process, and game physic processing abilities. The slogan "Driven by Performance Fueled by Fantasy" is dead center of the front panel and the message is repeated on the back panel. The back panel also contains descriptions of the technologies listed on the front, while bringing more information about UVD 2.0, Crossfire X ,Microsoft DX 10.1, and more.

Inside the outer shell is the box that contains the HD 4770. The 4770 is packaged in an anti-static bubble wrap style bag, locked into the box tightly on all four sides to prevent damage in transit. The manual and included software from Power DVD sit on top of the card, while the hard parts such as the crossfire bridge, power connection and adapters for the DVI connections are hidden below.

The bundled accessories included with the Sapphire HD 4770 are the manual, two software titles from Cyberlink, a DVI to D-sub adapter, a DVI to HDMI adapter, a Crossfire bridge connection, a HDTV to Composite dongle,and a 4-pin to 6-pin power adapter. The included accessories should be enough to get you connected to the display of your choosing, while the software brings along added functionality.